I'm still sanding, yeah, yeah, yeah...

Almost half way through August already! We've sorta been "slackers" lately, or at least it seems that way. With the car housed in Jim's garage, its been a little more difficult to get in a good days work when all we seem to be doing is sanding a bit, slathering on a bit more body filler (oh, who's kidding.. bondo..) and leaving so it can dry. We tried not to get too ahead of ourselves and instead focus on just one area at a time (i.e. the rear end) but this makes for very slow progress. So, instead of hogging Jim's garage any longer we've decided to bring Betty home for a while so we can maybe get this sanding business over with a bit faster. Honestly, we went back and forth whether to keep Betty or sell her, and it was decided after much, much deliberation to keep her. So in between house hunting, wedding planning, and work we will (once again) borrow Jim's dads car hauler, and haul Betty over here to our tiny garage. At least if she sits here for a week without being touched we won't feel guilty about it. Maybe a little, but not much. -SB

How much I hate sanding.

See this image below? This is going to be me for the next 10 years. I hate sanding body filler. Hate it. Loathe it. Despise it. I have no patience for it. But... I try. Here I am trying to smooth out the massive discrepancies in the channel between the rear fender and body. Keep in mind, this area has been welded, ground down, filled with aluminum epoxy filler, then coated in body filler. It's a long process. It's tough to get anything in this area to sand the transition from the high fender, sloping down into the body. A short block with 36 grit is about the best you can do for now. Later, I'll smooth it out with the DA as good as I can, but currently, the last skim coat has been put on - I'll shoot it with a guide coat and see how we come out. -TH



The back in this pic has been skim coated for the last time. I'll long block this out and we should be ready for some finer grit on the DA...then on to primer. This was a long, long process getting the rear looking good. -TH





I'm sure I'll be sanding this thing for an eternity. I hoped to have primer on the whole car by August. Yeah right. Until next time...I'll be sanding, sanding, sanding, sanding...oh, and sanding. -TH